A land there is, lying near far-northern snow, <br />Where only the fissures life's springtime may know. <br />But surging, the sea tells of great deeds done, <br />And loved is the land as a mother by son. <br /> <br />What time we were little and sat on her knee, <br />She gave us her saga with pictures to see. <br />We read till our eyes opened wide and moist, <br />While nodding and smiling she mute rejoiced. <br /> <br />We went to the fjord and in wonder beheld <br />The ashen-gray bauta, that record of eld; <br />Still older she stood and her silence kept, <br />While stone-studded hows all around us slept. <br /> <br />Our hands she then took and away o'er the hill <br />She led to the church ever lowly and still, <br />Where humbly our forefathers knelt to pray, <br />And mildly she taught us: "Do ye as they!" <br /> <br />She scattered her snow on the mountain's steep side, <br />Then bade on swift skis her young manhood to glide; <br />The North Sea she maddened with scourge of gales, <br />Then bade her young manhood to hoist the sails. <br /> <br />Of beautiful maidens she gathered a throng, <br />To follow our daring with smiles and with song, <br />While she sat enthroned with her saga's scroll <br />In mantle of moonlight beneath the Pole. <br /> <br />Then "Forward, go forward!" was borne on the wind, <br />"With forefathers' aim and with forefathers' mind, <br />For freedom, for Norsehood, for Norway, hurrah!" <br />While echoing mountains voiced their hurrah. <br /> <br />Then life-giving fountains burst forth on our sight, <br />Then we were baptized with her spirit of might, <br />Then gleamed o'er the mountains a vision high, <br />That summons us onward until we die.<br /><br />Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/our-country-1859/
